The Color Red
by TheTryingWriter
Summary: Red is the color of pain. For a young girl it was the aching at the heart kind of pain. How could a color cause that much damage? One-shot


I hate my hair and I hate my eyes.

I can see perfectly out of my eyes and my hair isn't uncontrollable. They both function perfectly. It's their color I hate.

They're red; a matching set.

My eyes are a lighter red, while my hair is a darker tone of red. It's dark enough to resemble maroon, but all I see is red.

At a young age, I was constantly picked on for their strange color. In Kindergarten the kids were very cruel. They called me "demon" and the only way I could play with them is if I role-played the villain.

The kids' parents were no better when it came to evaluating me. The thing with them was that they didn't say anything to me. However, the looks they directed at my small frame were hurtful. Their faces showed how openly disgusted they were. The words they quietly said to one another like "weird" and "strange" weren't quiet. I remember how out of place and small I felt every time I heard them whisper. I was just five at the time and I already knew what it meant to be different before most children did.

Kindergarten had just been the beginning. The following grades were gradually worse because kids had more things to say and do. I remember in third grade how I got my hair pulled on for the first time by a boy in my class during recess. All the boys would call me "ugly" and many of them also called me "monster girl". The girls wouldn't come near me and none of them wanted to be my friend. I was alone all the time.

Everyday I would come home in tears and would tell my grandpa the horrible day I had at school. He would just hold me and not let go until I stopped crying. As I got older, this routine of crying became less and less. I became indifferent to what people had to say about me. Also what they didn't have to say. To me the people who didn't say anything, but stared, were the worst. Their facial expressions of disgust made me cringe internally and whenever I could, run away.

I'm now fourteen and it's still no different.

My grandpa believes that I no longer am being outcasted. That was because I no longer talked about it. He was the only one who didn't look at me with disgust or called me terrible names. He was the only one because he was my only family.

My parents died in a car accident when I was two. I had also been in the car, but miraculously I survived with just a few scratches. My grandpa took the role of guardianship and treats me very kindly. He was my mom's dad so he loves everything about me. I was too young to remember her, but he told me I resemble her. In the pictures my grandpa would show me, I saw that she had the same hair and eye color as me. I thought growing up that she was beautiful. My image of her was of a fairy princess from the fairytales my grandpa used to read to me before bed. Thinking about it, she would of been a queen and that would of made me the princess. Honestly though, I feel more like the evil dragon that everyone hated and feared..

I always think that maybe if she were still alive I wouldn't be treated so badly. However, she's dead and I am horribly treated.

The greatest irony of all would have to be my name.

Fine.

No, I am not talking about my state of being. My name is Fine. I always wondered what my parents were thinking. I will never know and that kind of annoys me. However, that annoyed feeling isn't permanent when I think that they will never be able to tell me anything. Nothing at all.

My heart, to this day, tightens up at the thought.

My grandpa doesn't know either what they were thinking. However, he doesn't really see the irony in it like I do. He is more interested in my name's origins. My grandpa loves my name and believes it to be very fitting. He only sees my outer surface. He doesn't know that people continue to give me looks and that those looks continue to bother me.

However, it's not as bad as it used to be. Then again when I was ten I decided to cut my hair. Since then, I kept at the length where it barely reaches my shoulders and unfortunately frames my face. Therefore, it brings out my eyes. My dull red eyes.

They are immensely bland as I look at my reflection. The reflection that appears on the river surface, which runs under the bricked bridge I currently stand on.

When all the people's stares become suffocating. When the outcasted isolation becomes overbearing. When I can't stand the terrible thoughts running through my head.

I run.

I run to the safest place I know.

Not into my grandpa's arms. I haven't done that in a long time.

Following a path that I happened to discover one day three years ago, I run. When I hear the rushing of water, I slow down. Before I know it, I always find myself at the same bridge.

The bridge was a good ten feet or so above the water. The stone ledges on each side of the bridge only stick out at least a foot higher than the platform of the bridge.

Whoever made this bridge was not thinking about safety. It was a weird looking bridge if you think about it. However, it was its strangeness that brought me comfort. Also no one ever came this way, so that was nice too. I come here so often it became a daily routine.

Today was no different than any other day. I had been at the department store just an hour ago. I had planned to buy supplies for school because I started my first year of high school on Monday. I had two days left.

As I walked inside the store, I received the standard stares. I ignored them and headed over to the school supplies aisle. Other people were there already. There were three older ladies with shop baskets standing on the far side of the aisle. I figured that they were mothers who were shopping for their own kids. All three of them were huddled over the loose leaf paper packets, which I needed.

I would just wait for them to leave to get some of my own. So I pretended to be deeply intrigued in the pens in front of me. I was trying to make it seem like I was having a hard time choosing one when I already had a pack of pens in my own basket.

The ladies were still there. I could hear them and I dared myself not to turn because then they would see my eyes. My hair had already caught their attention. In fact it was the topic of their conversation.

"Kids this days, dyeing their hair."

"So troublesome."

"With that color, she must be very rebellious."

I would not turn around. They spoke in very hushed tones, but it was the kind that was meant to be heard. Their voices held no secrets. It's like they wanted me to listen and like an obedient girl, take their advice.

There was a time I thought about dyeing my hair a normal color. However, I would then remember my mother. Her hair was red and she never hid it. In every picture I had seen, she always had red hair. So I decided that I would keep my red hair too. It was my own way of honoring her and it was also sort of a memento. Thinking of this always made me feel a bit better. It gave me a boost of pride almost.

However, it didn't last long.

After a while of staring at the pens I mistook the silence as lack of presence. I made the mistake and looked over too soon. The three ladies were still there. Two of them weren't paying me any attention. Just one had seen me turn my head. I turned my head back quickly to the pens, but it had been too late. She was already telling the other two ladies about her new discovery.

"Oh goodness, her eyes."

"What about them?"

I closed my eyes in the attempt to block their horrified faces. Their voices I could not block, so I stood still waiting for the moment to pass. It would pass. This happened all the time and it always passed. A storm always passes, but the damage is always devastating.

"They're red."

"Oh dear, how frightening."

Just go away. Please just walk away. Why do you still stand there.

Are you enjoying my pain? Do you think I want to hear this?

I grasped the basket handle tighter. I was tensed up due to the emotional hurt and the anger of enduring this once again. When would it end?

Then it did.

"Her poor parents. How can they stand to have a child who looks like that?"

Everything fell apart afterwards. I dropped my basket with the one pack of pens to the ground. I ran out of that store before I could think that I was making a scene. Scene or not, I had to leave. That was the worst. I couldn't stand it anymore.

So I ran.

My feet knew the way. My broken heart knew the way. The cracks in my heart mapped the way to my safe space. It was almost like once I reached the safe space, my heart would seal up again. That is what I always hoped. However, it never did. Pained, but hopeful, I still came to the bridge.

I painfully sighed at the memory.

My knees stuck close to my chest as I sat. My eyes trailed the flow of the water ahead of me. It must of been a couple feet deep. Especially because it rained the day before, so it must've risen a couple of inches. However, the depth of the water did not concern me. I was more interested in the continuous path the river took.

My eyes would follow the flow of the river as it became narrow and eventually disappeared. My heart was beating fiercely to the memories of that scene in the department store. So I let the flow of the river take me away; erasing the anxiety provoking scene temporarily.

That is all I could do.

I placed my chin on the soft cotton that is my yellow daffodil dress. It reached my knees, but in my position it covered my legs leaving exposed gray slippers.

My grandpa got me the dress as a present for entering the first year of High school. I absolutely loved the dress. It was soft and nicely spacey where I can walk freely without restriction. Therefore, running was very possible in this dress.

However, the fact that it was yellow and not red is the main reason I loved it.

My grandpa is a wonderful man. He buys me these gifts and spoils me because I am his only grandchild. I love him dearly and that is why I can't bother him with the sad things in my life. He sees me as his sunshine, when really I feel in the shadows. That is why he chose this dress.

Yellow was sunshine.

However, once I put it on this morning I was disappointed on how it looked on me. It's sweet color mocked the darkness in my heart, but I wore it to make him happy.

The mellow color was nice I had to admit. It was comforting and left a warm feeling in my chest. I could smile at least to the idea of the color. That was a good start.

I could never tell my grandpa the truth. I just couldn't bring myself to break his image of a happy carefree granddaughter. He lost his daughter, my mother, already so if he found out that his granddaughter was being outcasted by everyone, he would feel terrible. He would see himself as a failure when he wasn't. He was the only happy thing I had in my life and I tend to at least hold onto that as long as I could.

Feeling emotionally drained, but calmer I decided I would go home. I would just try the store again tomorrow.

As I stood up, I felt the bottom half of my body being suddenly pushed. It happened so fast and randomly, that I failed to straighten up. My right foot scraped the small ledge of the bridge while the other unfortunately lost grip of the ground. I spun my body as I fell, at the last attempt to save myself.

"Ahhhhh!"

I had not screamed. All the air in my lungs was punched out due to the shock. My voice was stuck and I was breathless.

The scream belonged to a little person who I caught glimpse of before the water engulfed me. It must of been a little girl due to the sound of the scream.

In the water, my survival instincts kicked in immediately and I attempted to swim upwards. A sudden jolt of painful energy raced from my lower right leg to the rest of my body. It partially paralyzed me, so I could no longer move as quickly. I was sinking very slowly to the bottom because the current was not strong enough to pull me along. Still attempting, I tried to lift myself to reach the surface.

I couldn't hold my breath any longer. Panicking I moved my hands faster, but my right leg was stone still. It also restricted the movement of the other leg so I continued to sink ever so slowly to the bottom. It was taking me deeper and I began to lose hope.

Maybe this was a sign.

My arms stopped moving at that idea. I stopped resisting the water and let my limbs go limp.

Maybe now all the pain inside me would go away.

At that moment, a part of me wished that the current was strong enough to take me down the river. Then I would go far away. Then no one will see me and my red hair or red eyes. It was a nice thought so I closed my eyes and took my last breath.

However, it wasn't my last anything. Something grabbed my arm and pulled me upwards. My head broke the surface and automatically I coughed out all the unwanted water in my system.

"Don't worry. I've got you."

I had clear pathways to my lungs now. Blinking the excess water out of my eyes I turned to the reassuring voice.

It was a boy who pulled me out. My eyes locked with dark amethyst ones. I said nothing as the boy pulled himself and my own body to dry land. When he was able to stand, nothing could prepare me for what was going to happen next.

He picked me up, princess style. Just like in those fairy tales I read when I was little. Where the brave knight or the kind prince carries his lovely maiden. However, unlike the beautiful maiden in the story, I was not flattered or over joyed. In fact, I was cold and wet and still in shock with everything that has happened in such a short time. Too much has happened and I couldn't help but stay silent.

He didn't carry me far. Once we were a couple of feet away from the water he put me down. I just averted my eyes to the solid ground. It felt different to the sinking feeling of the river. It felt steady and firm as I planted my palm on the grass.

"I'll be right back."

I didn't respond neither did I look up from the grass. I watched his brown laced shoes walk away from where I was sitting. Then I decided that I would at least see where he was going and why he said he would return. He walked over to the entrance of the bridge and bent down in a grabbing motion. He held a dark grey jacket in his hand. As he looked up towards my direction, I quickly averted my eyes back to the ground.

The boy was tall. He had navy colored hair and what I recollected from earlier dark pretty eyes. His cloths and hair were dripping wet, leaving a trail behind him. I didn't want him to know that I was observing him.

However, I had been. So I continued to stare at the ground and then I felt something dry wrap my shoulders and back in a warm embrace. It was the boy's jacket.

"Here, stay warm. My sister went to get some towels and a first aid kit just in case. It looks like you hurt your foot while falling. It's bleeding."

At the last thing the boy said I looked up at his face, slightly confused. His face was still and serious but his eyes reflected concern towards me. From his face I looked over at my right foot.

He was right. It was bleeding.

Red liquid was slightly oozing out from a scratch on my foot. The more I stared the more I realized what had really happened. I am so stupid.

"I might have some wrapping bandages in that first aid kit. Wait a little bit okay?"

I looked at his face again and this time it was more relaxed than before, not by much, but enough to convey a kind reassurance.

Then I did something that I thought wasn't possible anymore. I pulled in my knees and planted my face against the wet surface of my dress and I cried. In all honesty, I thought I had cried myself dry a long time ago. However, the tears streamed down my face as I hugged my legs tighter.

I had almost drowned and I didn't care. I was going to let it happen; I had accepted it. The loneliness in my heart allowed me to give up. I thought it would be okay to leave this world and no one would care.

However, this boy saved me.

Why me? Why do I have to suffer all alone and want to die alone? It's not fair.

I cried from the pain in my ankle and the pain in my heart. The tears kept coming and I let them. The river had not taken me down the stream and I was glad now it hadn't. However, the sadness in my heart wasn't going away.

The boy was silent as I cried. It should of made me uncomfortable but it brought me comfort that he stayed. He was nice to save me and to lend me his jacket. It was the first two nice gestures I have received from a stranger in forever.

"Big Brother! Shade! I am here with the towels and first ale kit!"

The small cute voice came from behind me, but I didn't turn. In my distressed state I was able to put one and one together. The boy in front of me was the little girl's big brother and his name was Shade. Knowing his name made me feel less lonely and the tears became less.

"Rein, it AID. It's first AID kit. Not ale."

"Oh, Okay! here is the first AID kit."

I couldn't help shift my head to where this adorable exchange of words was happening. The little girl had blue wavy hair that reached mid back. She was at least half a foot taller than me. Sitting down that is. She turned around to me and I saw pretty blue green eyes.

"I'm sorry I pulled you down pretty lady."

"Rein, it's pushed not pulled."

Pretty? Me?

Did she not see my eyes. Most little kids would run away when they saw my eyes. In a second attempt the little girl spoke.

"I'm sorry that I pushed you Pretty lady."

There it was again. It was the first, then it was the second. Overwhelmed by this little girl's words, the tears began to fall again.

"Don't cry Pretty Lady. I'm sorry!"

She circled around me and hugged me on the back saying sorry, over and over again. She joined me in crying, much to my surprise. The warmth coming from these two and the loneliness I have felt for too long was the reason I cried. This little girl cried because she felt bad and that made me cry even more.

We must of looked silly to the boy who was kneed down next to me. A teen and a little girl were sobbing next to a river bend. The boy didn't comment on my behavior but stayed quiet next to me. I glanced over no longer sobbing and saw he was looking at me with a calm demeanor. He then placed a towel omy head.

"Dry your hair. You don't want to catch a cold."

After what I felt had been a good cry I took a deep breathe in and grabbed the towel from my head. The little girl who now I knew as Rein let me go, but she sat herself between me and her brother. Particularly close to me. It was sweet. I watched as she rubbed her eyes, wiping the tears. My hair dried quickly as it was conveniently short. Shade was searching through his kit and his little sister looked up at me.

"What is your name Pretty Lady?"

Now that I was no longer crying I had the courage to let myself speak. Rein continued to stare at me with anticipating eyes so I decided to answer her.

"It's Fine."

"What a pretty name."

This girl said pretty a lot. However, I didn't dislike it. It was way better then being called weird and ugly.

"My name is Rein."

I nodded reassuringly and saw her grab her brother's wet shirt.

"Introduce you self Shade."

"Rein it's YOURself. And you already did."

I smiled. It was small one, but it felt good. It was a genuine smile that rose up from my center. It had traveled through from my chest leaving a warm feeling inside me and leaving a small smile on my face.

I had not been paying attention because Shade had cleaned the blood from my foot. He was now wrapping my foot and ankle with a white wrapping cloth. His eyes were so focused in his task that it entranced me to watch with the same intensity at his work.

"It isn't too tight? It has to be tight enough to support your ankle, but not to stop the circulation."

I nodded in reassurance that it wasn't too tight. After he wrapped it, I slowly stretched my leg out straight and bend it back to my chest. Getting the stiffness out of my leg I looked over at the little girl. Rein was grinning, teeth visible, and clapped her hands once. She was about to make a point. I just knew it with that attention grabbing clap.

"Shade is super duper smart with doctor stuff! He wants to be a doctor!"

"REIN!"

I watched as Shade's cheeks grew slightly red. Rein and I giggled at his honest reaction. While I sat laughing, Shade had trapped Rein in a tickling fest. This is the most I have been genuinely happy and it felt even better being able to share it with others.

After a while, when Rein had surrendered to the tickle fight, me and Shade were drying ourselves with towels. Rein then began telling me all about her moving experience.

She had told me that they had just moved into town and that she wanted to explore. Shade had accompanied her and they ended up at the path I usually took for refuge. Of course she hadn't known that. She had ran ahead even though her older brother had told her not to. Then she saw the bridge and got overly excited, not noticing me and that was when she bumped into me. She hugged me once she finished telling her story, apologizing for what she had done once again. I hugged her back this time; forgiving her. Shade finished the story in his point of view.

"When I heard Rein scream I ran over afraid she had fallen. She was on the bridge and I saw that she was pointing in the water. I told her to run home for the things and that is when I jumped in."

"And that is when he SAVED YOU!"

She sounded so triumphant as she stood up. She was was so proud of her older brother that she showed it with a big smile. She went over to him and placing herself behind him, she hugged him. The scene was so cute, but something still bothered me.

I had to know.

Hesitating I asked the question that was never needed to be asked before.

"Do you guys think I look weird?"

"Well, you are wet."

Way to point out the obvious Shade. I sighed and decided to specify. I was taking a risk, but I just wanted to know.

"No not that. My eyes. They're red. Doesn't that freak you out?"

I watched anxiously as the older brother sat staring at me, eyebrows raised, and his little sister removed her arms from around him. She walked up to me and stared into my eyes very closely. Her intense face was inches away from mine.

"I like them."

My heart lifted up and all the horrible memories ceased to exist. Her words were so simple, but they left a strong impact. She liked my eyes. They didn't scare her.

"They look like cherries!"

I giggled at her childish but sweet comparison. Cherries were pretty good.

Rein and me turned exactly at the same time, our attention to the still unresponsive boy. It was not planned and it made me question if she was telepathic. The little girl then went on to ask the boy what I was too worried o ask again.

Or so I thought.

"Shade don't you think she looks pretty?"

I did not ask that. However, I was curious to know how he would answer. He looked away from us and when he still didn't respond Rein jumped him. I sat still as she attacked her brother for my sake. She had her hands on his hair and she was messing it up with her small hands. When she wouldn't stop, he responded with a defeated sigh. However, a small smile formed in his face despite the defeat.

"They're nice. Your eyes. There is nothing weird about them. Happy?"

The last part was meant towards Rein who had slightly annoyed him with the hair mess up.

However, I was happy. They didn't know it, but I was very happy. Happier than I've been for a long time.

"He said you were pretty Fine!"

She giggled and ran over to me and gave me a bear hug. Her last comment made him blush like before, but darker. He tried to hide it by turning his head away, averting his troubled eyes.

However, I saw it and it was a nice shade of red.

I smiled.

Maybe red wasn't so bad after all.


End file.
